Pass the Dutchie

"Pass the Dutchie"
Single by Musical Youth
from the album The Youth of Today
B-side	"Give Love a Chance"
Released	September 1982
Genre	Reggae
Length	3:25
Label	MCA
Writer(s)	Leroy Sibbles, Jackie Mittoo
Musical Youth singles chronology
"Generals"/"Political" (1981) "Pass the Dutchie" (1982) "Youth of Today" (1982)

"Pass the Dutchie" is a reggae song recorded by the British group Musical Youth from their 1982 album The Youth of Today. It was a major hit, holding the number one position on the UK singles charts for three weeks in October 1982 and selling 5 million copies worldwide.This song was also used by Mexican pop Group "Menudo" in 1985.

Background

The song was the band's first release on a major label. It was a cover version of "Pass the Kouchie" by The Mighty Diamonds, which deals with the recreational use of cannabis, "kouchie" being slang for a cannabis pipe. For the cover version, the song's title was bowdlerized to "Pass the Dutchie", and all obvious drug references were removed from the lyrics; e.g., when the original croons "How does it feel when you got no herb?", the cover version refers to "food" instead. "Dutchie" is used as a patois term to refer to a food cooking pot such as a Dutch oven in Jamaica and the Caribbean. It has since become a drug reference in itself, denoting a blunt stuffed with marijuana and rolled in a wrapper from a Dutch Masters cigar.

The song was first championed by radio DJ Zach Diezel and became an instant hit when it was picked up by MCA Records in September 1982. It debuted at #26 on the UK chart and rose to #1 the following week. In February of the following year, it reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the USA.^[1] The song also scored the #1 position in five other countries, eventually selling over 5 million copies worldwide.^[2][3]

Music video

The video, directed by Don Letts,^[4] was shot partly on the southern banks of the River Thames in London, across from the Palace of Westminster. It depicts the band performing the song and playing instruments, until an official appears to arrest them.^[5] Courtroom scenes are interspersed with the exterior ones. Musical Youth became the first black artists to appear in a studio segment on MTV.^[6]

Track listing

• 7" Single^[7][8]

A. "Pass the Dutchie" – 3:25

B. "Please Give Love a Chance" – 3:36

• 12" Single^[9]

A. "Pass the Dutchie" – 6:05

B. "Pass the Dutchie" (Special Dub Mix) – 4:40

Charts and certifications

Cover versions and references in other songs

• The song was sampled by a rap group Public Enemy for the song "Revolutionary Generation" on their 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet.
• The song is referenced lyrically on Ice Cube's 1994 single "Bop Gun (One Nation)" (featuring George Clinton), the fourth single from Ice Cube's fifth album, Lethal Injection.
• The song is referenced lyrically on Beck's 1996 album Odelay in the song "Where It's At".
• "Pass the Dutchie" was covered by the ska band Buck-O-Nine in 1998.
• "Pass the Dutchie" was re-made by the Kumbia Kings on their 2004 album Fuego.
• The song was sampled in The Black Eyed Peas song "Dum Diddly" from their 2005 album Monkey Business.
• The song was parodied by a band from the Seychelles Islands Dezil' under the title "Laisse tomber les filles (qui se maquillent)", and peaked at #13 in France and #47 in Switzerland in 2006.^[25]
• In May 2009, Los Angeles based music duo LOONER released "Dutchie", their laid back version of the song which lyrically references the main chorus of the original.^[26]
• UK-based electronic hip-hop artist Star Slinger remixed the song for his first volume of music. The remix is called "Dutchie Courage".

References in popular culture

• The song was used in the soundtrack of the 1998 movie The Wedding Singer.^[27]
• The "Menu" theme for the Game Boy Camera is a short instrumental loop of this song.^[28]
• In The Simpsons 1999 episode, "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo", Homer makes a reference to the song in saying that he "wants to pass the Dutchie on the left hand side."
• In the 2000 satirical comedy film Scary Movie, during the rap scene involving Shorty, his friends, and the killer, Shorty's rap contains the line "...always pass the Dutchie to the left 'cause the right way is wrong.
• The song was used in the film version of Scooby-Doo in the scene where Shaggy and Scooby are "cooking" in their van.
• The Canadian hit teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, which is known for naming each episode after an 80s hit song, named a season 7 episode after this song, about the use of medicinal marijuana. The episode was aired in early 2008.
• The song was used in the 2010 New Zealand film Boy.

References